


place to rest / keep on running

by orphan_account



Series: Post-Island [3]
Category: Lost
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, i feel like i should be tagging "murder discussion" but like, this is more fluff than anything else... probably... i swear...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 01:37:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6033334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cards are always stacked against you, the odds are always low.<br/>But I have seen the best of you, and the worst of you, and I choose both.<br/>— Sarah Kay</p><p>(Dedicated to mollivanders, because your post-island fic is the reason I wound up in this hole to start with.)<br/>(Not forgivable, by the way.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	place to rest / keep on running

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mollivanders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/gifts).



> to catch you up on the series if you haven't read it:
> 
> \- kate left los angeles and went as far as she could go without leaving the state, for lots of reasons. the main one, quite frankly, being that kate and cassidy are in love, but that's never what i'm here to talk about.  
> \- so now kate and sawyer are living near arizona and they're working on their dysfunctional family unit type thing.  
> \- they are also working on a lot of personal bullshit, obviously. i am deeply committed to both juliet burke and kate's characterization so they're not going to be like, disgustingly, "i made you a mixtape" ~domestic~ or whatever for a while. sorry.  
> \- i also realize it is cruel that 95% of this fic literally takes place in kate's bed so i'm just gonna tell you: it ain't happening.
> 
> but, enjoy? hopefully?

Sawyer’d been reading her  _ Pride and Prejudice _ , which she hated.  
He did that often, came over with at night with a book under the pretense of culturing her (and, to his credit-- if one can call it that-- he actually read). Sometimes they sat on the couch: Kate glaring, Sawyer pretending not to notice. Eventually he would start yawning and let his guard down, and then she would take his glasses and stare intently. 

(She looked cute as hell with them on, anyway, and she knew it.)

Other times, when he couldn’t sleep, Sawyer would call her and she’d entertain him then, settling for uncharacteristically little banter and occasionally even paying attention. She surprised him, every now and then, by actually giving him feedback, but this was not one of those times.  
  
That night, it was Kate who couldn’t sleep.  
She never called him, so when she had, it shouldn’t have surprised her that he let himself in. 

He stopped at her bedroom door, even though it was open. Knocked on the side of the frame. Called out, “Freckles? You decent?”

And, really, it depended on who you asked: she was dressed. She’d also been crying.  
But it’d been a while, and they’d both done plenty of that since the island.  
“Come in,” Kate told him, sitting up and switching on the bedside lamp.  
“I know I didn’t wake you,” he said, coming into view.  
“Didn’t know if you’d come in.”

(Sometimes, he’d go straight to the room they both knew was his and pass out.)

“Well,” Sawyer said, deciding that was fair enough, “I was worried about you.”  
Kate smirked, but she was losing her touch. It was almost a smile.  
“You’ve been talking to Cass too much.”  
Sawyer raised an eyebrow, trying to decide whether she was calling him paranoid or out of the loop.  
“Cassidy,” he said, “is a smart lady, and she loves you. But she’s got better things to do than gossip with me.”

Well, they both knew that was true.

Kate patted the spot next to her on the bed.  
“I don’t have anything better to do,” she told him, “but I don’t have any other friends, either.”

So Sawyer read to her from  _ Pride and Prejudice _ , which she hated but still handed to him. And then, after uncharacteristically few disparaging remarks from Kate, he sat the book down.

He asked, “You gonna tell me why I’m doing this?”  
Too spent to point out she hadn’t invited him, she said one word:  _ Diane _ .  
Of course, he didn’t know who that was.  
“My mother,” she told him. “She’s dead.”

Kate could see the lines in his face from those decades of carefully cultivated surliness: otherwise, he didn’t react.  
He said, “I didn’t know you had a mother.”  
She didn’t know what she had expected, but it wasn’t that, and Kate laughed in spite of herself.  
Sawyer smiled gently.  
It said, _When you’re ready_. 

She had already cried herself out. In her own way, she’d been letting go of Diane for years: funnily enough, since the day her life first intersected with his. 

She took the book from where it sat and replaced it on her bedside table.  
“It’s a tired story,” she started, and nodding gravely, added, “almost as tired as that one.”

He reached over and lifted her easily, pulling her onto his lap, holding her close.  
Kate wondered idly how many other girls had had to question if “it’s a classic” constituted a sweet nothing. 

(It was too substantial, and definitely too pretentious.)

Still, she leaned into him like a careworn chair. Rested her arms over his, tight around her.

“She turned me in,” she told him. “Spent my whole life trying to be worth her time, and I thought… I guess I thought I could help us both. I killed my stepfather. Found out he was my real father and I kind of lost it.”

And it was strange how little she felt, including herself in the story.  
A thousand years ago, they’d sat on a different bed and he’d promised to keep her safe.  
The problem was, line or not, he always had.  
That even though she’d passed on playing house, they’d made a home together all the same.  
The problem was, even the silence they lapsed into was companionable. 

“He deserve it?” Sawyer asked eventually, but it wasn’t a question. More of an affirmation.  
“You know he did,” she answered, and that was enough.  
He kissed the top of her head, light as air, and she laced her fingers through his. 

  
The story they’d been spinning was hardly a fairytale, but Kate had never liked the classics, anyway. 


End file.
